Deuteronomy 5:15

Thou wast a servant. Every act of God on our behalf constitutes a reason why we should “remember,” that is, to reflect upon, acknowledge, and appreciate this love and beneficent care. It is God’s purpose that on the Sabbath day whatever interferes with the direct and personal fellowship between the creature and his Creator should be laid aside. The Sabbath is a day on which it is our happy privilege to become better acquainted with our Father in heaven, whom to know is life eternal (John 17:3). To know God is to love Him (see 1 John 4:8), to honor Him, and to appreciate the evidences of His paternal goodness (Rom. 1:21).

Their deliverance from Egypt constituted an additional reason why the Israelites should reverence the Sabbath, yet the very words of the fourth commandment itself point back to the origin of the Sabbath at creation (Ex. 20:8-11) as the reason for the command here to “keep the sabbath day to sanctify it.” It should be remembered that the form in which God spoke the Ten Commandments upon Sinai is that given in Ex. 20, not in Deut. 5. As its name implies, the book of Deuteronomy is a recapitulation of the various laws transmitted to Israel at Sinai, with additional explanations given by Moses in an attempt to impress the people with the importance of observing faithfully all that they had been commanded to do. If mention of the deliverance from Egypt in connection with the fourth commandment be taken as limiting its observance, in principle, to those who were thus delivered — literal Israelites — then the principles of the Ten Commandments as a whole belong to the Jews only, for both here (Deut. 5:6) and in Ex. 20:2 God presented His law as based on the fact that He had brought them forth from the land of Egypt.

As literal Israel was delivered from the bondage of Egypt, so God’s people today have been set free from the bondage of sin (Rom. 6:16-18). The Sabbath thus becomes for the Christian a memorial not only of creation but of the re-creation of the image of God in his own heart and mind (see on Deut. 5:8). The Sabbath is thus a “sign” of sanctification (Eze. 20:12) — of redemption as well as of creation.